Williams: Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline Going Online in August

The sun is rising on Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline, a $3 billion, 198-mile pipeline project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from northeastern PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County. When first announced, radical anti-drillers claimed they had a thousand people ready to protest and block work on the pipeline. In the end, something under 50 people were arrested for illegal activities in blocking work on the project. The most recent kerfuffle, from earlier this month, included one of the original founders of Lancaster Against Pipelines, Mark Clatterbuck, who used a “sleeping dragon” technique to block work for a few hours (see 2 Lancaster Radicals Arrested Stopping Atlantic Sunrise Pipe Work). Along the journey to building Atlantic Sunrise we’ve faced down radicalized nuns (“Sisters of the Corn”) who tried to block the pipeline from passing across their property–a property with an old folks home that uses natural gas–using a faux “chapel” in a corn field and by filing federal lawsuits (see Lancaster Nuns Demand “Religious Freedom” Trial re Pipeline). Antis tried building a couple of sheds on stilts, hoping to block construction (see PA Antis Build 2nd Magic Tree House to Stop Atlantic Sunrise Pipe). Antis protested at Williams’ regional office, showed up at various construction sites, got a local tribe of Indians involved–and in the end, all of their machinations were for nothing. Williams issued a press release yesterday to say the pipeline is almost done and will go online–flowing 1.7 billion cubic feet per day of mostly Cabot Oil & Gas Marcellus Shale gas extracted in Susquehanna County–sometime in August…